Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic, and educational thought.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Quotes
The people of England regards itself as free; but it is grossly mistaken; it is free only during the election of members of parliament. As soon as they are elected, slavery overtakes it, and it is nothing.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If we assume man has been corrupted by an artificial civilization, what is the natural state? the state of nature from which he has been removed? imagine, wandering up and down the forest without industry, without speech, and without home.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In a well governed state, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a state is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In any case, frequent punishments are a sign of weakness or slackness in the government. There is no man so bad that he cannot be made good for something. No man should be put to death, even as an example, if he can be left to live without danger to society.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
To live is not to breathe but to act. It is to make use of our organs, our senses, our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves which give us the sentiment of our existence. The man who has lived the most is not he who has counted the most years but he who has most felt life.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing; from which it follows that the social state is advantageous to men only when all possess something and none has too much.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and determined that love of solitude which I have retained ever since that time.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires, and who can doubt that the interest we have in admitting or denying the reality of the Judgement to come determines the faith of most men in accordance with their hopes and fears.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
So finally we tumble into the abyss, we ask God why he has made us so feeble. But, in spite of ourselves, He replies through our consciences: ‘I have made you too feeble to climb out of the pit, because i made you strong enough not to fall in.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I perceive God everywhere in His works. I sense Him in me; I see Him all around me.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I have never thought, for my part, that man’s freedom consists in his being able to do whatever he wills, but that he should not, by any human power, be forced to do what is against his will.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
All my misfortunes come of having thought too well of my fellows.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Every man having been born free and master of himself, no one else may under any pretext whatever subject him without his consent. To assert that the son of a slave is born a slave is to assert that he is not born a man.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Every artists wants to be applauded.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
To write a love letter, you have to start, without knowing, what you want to say, and end, without knowing what you have said.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
If force compels obedience, there is no need to invoke a duty to obey, and if force ceases to compel obedience, there is no longer any obligation.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
My love for imaginary objects and my facility in lending myself to them ended by disillusioning me with everything around me, and determined that love of solitude which I have retained ever since that time.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
However great a man’s natural talent may be, the act of writing cannot be learned all at once.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Finance is a slave’s word.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
He who blushes is already guilty.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, bethought himself of saying ‘this is mine’, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the real founder of civil society.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
It is hard to prevent oneself from believing what one so keenly desires, and who can doubt that the interest we have in admitting or denying the reality of the Judgement to come determines the faith of most men in accordance with their hopes and fears.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The more ingenious our apparatus, the coarser and more unskillful are our senses.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say, and to finish without knowing what you have written.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Every person has a right to risk their own life for the preservation of it.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau